


i'll hold you like the sun holds the moon

by bookishgypsy



Category: Dynasty (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-08 15:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19871863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishgypsy/pseuds/bookishgypsy
Summary: Just when she thought everything in her life was going good, personally and professionally - it all seemed to come crashing down upon her like a tidal wave.post season 2 finale/my version of how things could unfold in season 3.





	1. suffocating

**Author's Note:**

> hello & welcome. 
> 
> this has been a work in progress since the finale aired back in may, and finally...we're here. i realize this is a direction the show most definitely will not take, but i'm okay with that and i hope y'all enjoy regardless of that.
> 
> title comes from the civil twilight's 'letters from the sky,' which heavily influenced this fic.

_“What’s going on here?”_

_It’s Blake who asks the question first, the one swirling in everyone’s mind as the group of them make their way back to the mansion to the scene of paramedics and police standing around the clear blue water in the pool._

_One of the officers just looks at her father unfazed, muttering, “We found him in the pool.”_

_She wonders who_ him _is, when she sees the collection of them that live inside are all accounted for. But it hits her then that someone else has been spending quite a bit of time at the manor with her. It’s then and only then that she notices who’s laid out against the stretcher in his blue and red flannel shirt, being tended to by the various EMT’s surrounding him._

_“Liam?” She rushes up to them to him, grabbing at his hand and falling against his lifeless body, emotions overcoming her quickly; the tears are brisk to make their presence known, slowly streaming down her face, but she only allows a few to show. “No. No, no, no. Please, no.”_

_“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to step away."_

_“No! I don’t want to leave him,” she snaps at the female paramedic, flustered and afraid, leaning back into him to cup her hands against the side of his face. “Please, Liam. Please, don’t leave me.”_

_“Fallon.”_

_She hears her name in the near proximity, but it’s blurry and distant, like it’s a million miles away even though she knows it’s no more than a couple feet, especially when she feels the delicate hand being placed on her shoulder, tentative but reassuring all at the same time._

_Cristal._

_“Stop,” she tries to shrug it off, but the Latinas’ grip is firm against her push, trying to pull her back, away from the chaos, away from the heartache she’s currently diving into. She swings around, Cristal’s hand falling to her side once more as she says, “Stop. Stop. Stop.”_

_The same female EMT looks at her, straight into her eyes so she can feel the sincerity behind her words, she assumes. “We’re going to take him to the hospital so we can do everything we can to help him, okay?”_

_And she_ hates _being spoken to that way, full of sorrow and reaffirmation; but what she hates more is how desperately she needs it. The assurance that he’ll be okay. Because she’s not sure if she can go back to life before him; life was dull and grey without him, now she knew the life of color she could actually have._

_“Can I come with you?” She notices the pity in the paramedics face, that she’s about to tell her she can’t, but through all the chaos she remembers something so vividly, so clearly that would buy her an affirmative response.“I’m his fiancée.”_

_She ignores the mutters around her, from her father and Cristal, from Kirby and Sam - she hadn’t told them; she didn’t feel the need to. She just jumps into the back of the vehicle flashing blue and red lights and grabs at his hand again, watching as the doors shut behind her as it sets off in the direction of the nearest hospital, away from the only home she’d ever known until him._

She jolts awake to the stark white walls and incessant beeping coming from the various machines hooked up to him, the memory of discovering him just a few days ago haunting her every waking moment.

Her hand’s still laced with his from her seat in the chair besides his bed, warm and locked together; the machine monitoring his heart rate is the only thing giving her hope in the cloud of haze that surrounds her.

It’s _weird._

Talking to his unconscious body.

She know he’s in there somewhere realistically, but she’s not sure she believes in the doctors words when she told him he can still hear her words and sense her presence; she’s living on faith though, so she’s been giving it a try - no matter how weird and uncomfortable she feels doing so.

“I really can’t imagine my world without you in it,” she trails off towards the end, each word becoming softer in volume as she feels a prickly sensation at the corners of her eyes. “Ironic, right? All the times I pushed you away from me and now I can’t even imagine doing this without you. It’s like this is the universe’s sick way of getting back at me.”

Because really, she’d be lying to herself if she denied that she hadn’t been spiraling the past seventy two hours, that’d she’s already planted the seed in her mind that this was all somehow her fault. That if she’d just accepted how she felt instead of running away from her feelings for the better part of a year, maybe he wouldn’t be unconscious in a hospital bed tinkering between life and death.

“I don’t _want_ to imagine a life without you in it, really.” She pulls her free hands up to wipe the few stray tears falling down her cheeks, the few she couldn’t hold in no matter how hard she tried. “You’re the only person who’s been by my side through everything and stuck with me. Even when I didn’t want to stick by myself.”

“Please, Liam,” she begs, curling her second hand around their already joined hands, desperate to be as close and connected to him as possible. “Please wake up.”

Some stupid part of her expects him to wake up then, answer her pleading calls and calm all her fears and for everything to just go back to normal again. Maybe she’d jolt awake in her own bed and it would have all been a sick dream, his arms would be around hers and they’d go about their day as normal.

But the only response she’s met with is _beep, beep, beep._ The machines constant buzzing wistful and so terribly _annoying_. But she takes it for what it is - the beeping is good; the beeping means he’s alive and she’ll take that over the other alternative.

“You should get some rest, sweetie.”

Debra, the nurse that’d been tending to him since he arrived during the day shift, makes her presence known, prompting her to wonder how long she’d been listening in on her talking to the boy in the bed, making her instantly feel self-conscious at the thought of someone listening in on her words.

“I’m not leaving him.”

She comes in the bright white room with his chart, stepping towards the machines and writing down his vital signs as she did every hour. “You’re going to do him no good if you get yourself sick and wind up in a bed beside him.”

“That very well may be true,” Fallon sighs in agreement, “but I’m still not leaving him."

“How long have you been here?” The chart in the redheaded nurses' hand closes and the older woman rests it on the table off to the side of her, moving in closer to her and kneeling down to reach her eye level. “Have you even took a break since they brought him in?”

The brunettes head shakes from left to right, “I haven’t left."

“Have you slept? Ate?” Fallon shakes her head again at the two questions aimed at her, wondering why this nurse seems to care more about her wellbeing than her own family - who hadn’t bothered to come by and check up on her at all. Hell, they hadn’t even bothered to call. They didn’t even _text._ “Honey, you need to get some rest.”

Under her breath in the softest of tones, barely audible, she whispers, “I don’t really have anywhere to go.”

“What do you mean?”

She turns around to face the frail body in the bed, bringing their linked hands up to press a kiss against the back of his palm. “He’s all I have right now.”

She feels Debra come up close to her side while she says, “Now, I’m sure that’s not true.”

“But it _is_.”

And it’s almost like everything else hits her then.

Her father betrayed her, which shouldn’t be that surprising to her, but he’s her _father_ and she just wants his love and acceptance if nothing else. Because that’s all a child wants from their parents, right?

Kirby betrayed her; someone she was actually at the point of considering a _friend._ She should of known that was too good to be true. And _Cristal_. Cristal betrayed her, too; the person who tried to be more of a mother figure to her than her actual mother herself. Lying to her; scheming behind her back with the rest of them.

That one might have hurt the most.

“I really love him. More than I thought I was capable of.”

“I know you do, sweetie. I can see it.” It’s weird having someone she barely knows be so genuine and honest with her. Someone that cares about her well-being without it being for show or some stupid business transaction. It’s not something she’s used to, except with Liam. He always did everything he could for her, not for any gain - just because he loved her. “But you still need to go get some rest.”

“But—”

“Humor me, will you? Just go grab something to eat and take a short nap.”

She _was_ hungry; she couldn’t deny that. The hospital’s coffee wasn’t enough for her to survive on and it tasted terrible on top of that. And she was absolutely _exhausted,_ too; she hadn’t really slept in almost three days and the fifteen minute power naps weren’t really cutting it for her body to feel well rested.

Especially when she kept waking up from the same nightmare over and over and over again.

“Okay,” she nods. “But just a few hours and then I’m coming right back.”

“I’ll keep a good eye on him for you, alright?”

She nods, reluctant, but she knows this is a battle she’s not winning right now. She turns back to her fiancé, leaning in to press a lingering chaste kiss against his warm forehead, muttering “I love you,” wishing with all she’d had inside her that the touch would stir something in him and allow him to open his eyes.

She missed his eyes staring back into hers.

But she had no such luck, even for the few moments she hovers over him in a blissful hope, before turning around and letting herself leave him behind.

When she steps out into the warm Atlanta sunlight at the entrance to the hospital, she really can’t think of anywhere to actually _go_ to rest. She doesn’t want to go home - that’s a whole other situation she doesn’t even have time to think about or process right now, but she’s pretty sure they don’t care about her _or_ Liam for that matter.

That was made abundantly clear.

She can only think of one other place to go so she hopes in the back of an Uber waiting at the front doors and gives the driver the address of her destination.

//

She steps into his apartment and it’s almost like nothing was wrong at all, like none of the past seventy two hours were even real and he was here and living his life like normal; there was a few dishes in the sink, some clothes laying around on the floor. Even though she knew it was all an illusion and the reality was that everything around her was spiraling out of control. 

She makes her way to his bedroom, kicks her shoes off and slips her yellow dress off that’d she been uncomfortably wearing for the better part of three days and slips on a pair of his sweatpants and a white tank top before falling against his sheets.

It’s not until she sinks into his covers, falling against his pillows that still smell of him, that she really allows herself to cry. The realization that the very real possibility of losing the one person who’s stuck by her side through thick and thin, through _everything_ , could very well leave her forever.


	2. inhale, exhale

She wakes feeling a little disoriented.

Her eyes flutter open to the soft sunlight glowing through the windows, the soft orange hue of the sky telling her they’re nearing twilight. She glances to the alarm clock he keeps on his nightstand to the left to find 7:42pm in its bright red lights staring back at her.

She definitely slept more than a few hours and had given her body more towards an upwards of seven hours rest - she couldn’t deny she needed it but it made her heart sting that she wasn’t at the hospital with him, holding his hand and giving him the strength he so desperately needed to get better.

Because he _would_ wake up and he _would_ get better and she wasn’t even going to let her mind fall down that rabbit hole right now.

His sheets still smell of the cologne he uses, making her heart ache a little at the feel of the empty space beside her where he should be. And sure, they usually wound up at her place most of the time, but there was those few occasions when they’d made their way back to his apartment instead, curling up on these very sheets and dozing off next to one another.

She picks her iPhone up from beside her, checking for any missed calls from the hospital regarding Liam’s condition; truthfully, she was hoping for a missed call that said he’d woken _up,_ but there were no calls, texts or anything of the sorts and before she lets her mind wander elsewhere, she decides that no news is probably good news.

Visiting hours were over soon, eighteen minutes to be exact, but the nurses rotating his room at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital hadn’t been giving her a hard time about staying the night with him and she had no intent of tonight being any different.

She feels like she should call Laura, feels like it would be the right thing to do, to let his mother in on the fact that her only son is currently bed ridden at the hospital in a coma, but it’s not really a conversation she wants to have with the woman. Especially considering Laura can’t stand her guts, can’t stand the thought of her and Liam dating anyways. But she was his mother and she deserved to know. And, Liam would want his mother to know, she thinks; and she owes that to _him_ at least.

But, she doesn’t exactly want to deal with it _right_ this moment, so she lets the anxiety of the future phone call build within her and allows herself to focus on something else.

_Food._

My god, she’s _starving._ She didn’t bother grabbing food before stopping at Liam’s, didn’t even consider it when she walked in his door; just curled up on his comforter and fell asleep after her brief moment of weakness, wasting the rest of her day away, tangled up in his sheets.

She’s thankful when she remembers after a moment that she left a few pieces of clothing as his place, even though most of his belongings were migrating it’s way to _her_ room, she did in fact leave a toothbrush and a few spare outfits laying around here. Which was _great,_ because she really didn’t want to go home to change and face her family and she really didn’t want to throw that yellow dress of hers back on again.

She pushes herself to escape the warmth that she’s buried in and in twenty minutes she finds herself changed and waiting for the Uber she ordered outside his apartment complex, ready to be taken back to his side once more.

//

It’s the following morning when she decides she really can’t put off talking to Laura Van Kirk any longer, no matter how much she wishes she could avoid the situation all together.

She’s by Liam’s side once more, eating some cheap breakfast sandwich from the hospitals’ cafeteria (and what a humbling experience that was for her), when she’s glancing at his face, trying to not feel sorry for herself, when she realizes putting this off any longer isn’t fair to Liam.

He’d want his mom to know, he’d want his mom _here._

It’s not a conversation she’s ready to have particularly, and she can feel her anxieties building up within herself when she decided now was the time just moments ago, but it’d already been five days since the incident and it wasn’t fair to either of them for her to dance around it anymore.

So, she dials the older woman’s number, letting it ring three times before she figures Laura’s probably dodging her calls, especially if she sees _Fallon Carrington_ popping up on her caller ID, but just when she’s about to give up and end the call, she hears the muffled voice against the receiving end of the speaker.

“Fallon?”

“Laura,” she says. “Hi.”

//

The bland, stark, white walls feel like they’re starting to close in on her, the constant beeping from the machines hooked up to Liam, from the machines of the other patients in the various rooms surrounding him irritating her with each passing second; nurses and doctors working so efficiently that when they make their rounds throughout the day, she’s used to seeing them at exactly the same time.

Everything was starting to feel incredibly repetitive.

Everything was the same.

Every day, the same routine, over and over and over again.

She was never one to sit around in one spot for long. For as long as she could remember, she always had to be doing _something._ She was always one of those people who would get bored very easily; her hands had to be in something, her mind had to be occupied by _something,_ otherwise she’d get inside her head and her thought process would spiral out of control.

And sure, she had her phone which was arguably keeping _both_ her hands and mind occupied, but there was only so many times she could check her social media apps without feeling crazy, only so many games she could play without getting antsy and needing something else to do.

It just wasn’t enough to occupy her mind.

She just wishes he would _wake up._

She thinks maybe she should head to work for a while, head to the office and check her emails, look through some contracts and try to secure a few more new authors for Femperial’s roster. That would be a sure thing that would keep her busy, work always made her feel better; always gave her some feeling of accomplishment.

Until she remembers she _can’t_ do that.

She _can’t_ go to work because Kirby betrayed her, just another check on the list of people who’ve lied to her, used her, let her fall through the cracks when she really needed them to stand by her side.

She doesn’t have Femperial. She doesn’t have any friends she can rely on right now as her future lies in this bed. Hell, she doesn’t even feel like she has her family anymore; they still hadn’t bothered to ask how Liam was, hadn’t bothered to ask how _she_ was.

She turns the TV on, settling on whatever nonsensical show was playing at this time in the afternoon and settles back at his side, hand wrapped tightly around his; but it’s not the same without him squeezing hers back.

She’s starting to realize that maybe she’s only had Liam by her side all along.

//

It’s nearing about two in the morning when she feels someone place their hand on her shoulder, shaking slightly, causing her to stir. She figures it’s Liam’s overnight nurse, but when she hears the source say her name softly, she know’s who’s body the voice belongs to. It’s dark in the room, the only light coming from the brightly lit hallway where nurses still wandered about freely, but she can make out Laura’s frame just fine.

“Laura?”

Her hands still wrapped in Liam’s, always afraid to let go of him when Laura places her hand against her shoulder in such an unconventional manner, softly saying, “You should go get some rest, Fallon. I’ll stay with him tonight.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind, really. I don’t want to leave him.”

“No, honey, you need a full nights sleep, you need to get back on a routine,” she says softly, almost as if she’s afraid she’ll wake her son in the bed just a few feet from them. “It’s not healthy for you to be here all day and all night.”

Something about Laura Van Kirk waltzing in her fiancé’s hospital room, kind and soft spoken, not giving her a hard time about….well, anything, kind of stops her in her tracks and catches her attention. Rationally, she knows she’s right. She can’t keep this routine up of never leaving the hospital and surviving off food from the cafeteria.

Although she was damn well willing to try.

But _still_ , this was Laura Van Kirk, treating her like a human being, _caring_ about her well being and even more, it felt like she honest and truly was being sincere.

“My driver is out front, he’s going to take you wherever you want to go.”

She nods, getting up from her reclining seat next to his bed, heading out into the dark of the night, the light of all the surrounding building illuminating the empty streets while she climbs in the back of the Van Kirks limo, instructing the driver to take her to Liam’s apartment.

She leans back against the black leather seats, letting herself relax as best as she can while she feels the car propel forward into the early, early morning.

//

_She’s walking, slowly down a dark dirt path in the middle of a forest; surrounded by trees towering over her in height, barely making out the twinkle of the night stars above her through the overgrown branches._

_She can’t figure out where she is, can’t figure out where she’s going. It’s definitely nowhere she’s been before - just a long and winding road heading into the unknown. She comes to an impasse, a fork in the road with two more paths separating before her; one to her left and one to her right. She’s met with a sign directly center between her two options that reads:_

**_Your future lies in the path you chose._ **

_She goes right, for no better reason; it’s the direction in which her feet take her and when she takes the sharp right turn down that narrow walkway she finds herself in the middle of a graveyard, surrounded by hundreds of stones popping out of the Earth’s surface. She spins around, ready to turn around and head back from the way she came when she finds that path has already vanished into thin air, replaced by dozens more head stones that seem to go on forever._

_She’s stuck with no way out, spinning round and round in circles gazing out in the space around her for any escape out of the endless hell she’s found herself trapped in. When she finally stops, giving up on finding any logical way out she’s met with a gravestone that wasn’t there when she first stepped foot off that path. It stops her dead in her tracks when she reads the writing engraved into the heavy stone._

**_Here lies:_ **

**_Liam Ridley_ **

**_June 23rd, 1990 to May 24th, 2019_ **

She screams when she comes to, bolting straight up in his bed in the darkness of night. She’s panting heavily, heart racing far too fast to considered normal and everything around her feels so far out of reach.

She reaches for her phone - 6:42am - seeing for any missed calls or texts from Laura, hoping her dream wasn’t a premonition of what was happening or what was to come, but there’s nothing; not one missed notification at all.

She shoots a quick text to Laura, asking if he’s alright. It’s irrational, she knows; she knows he’s okay and that Laura would have called her if something had gone astir, but still - she can’t shake this fear that seems to be looming inside her.

Her phone buzzes just a moment later and she reads Laura’s response quickly and ten times over: _he’s just fine, no changes._

She breaths a heavy sigh of relief at those words, but she still can’t still herself. She tries to fall back against his sheets and curl up with his comforter, holding one of his extra pillows close to her body, desperately trying to convince her mind it was him, but she gets nowhere.

So much for a full nights’ sleep.

//

She’s mindlessly watching some random sitcom from the 90s on the television mounted against the bland white walls of his room when she feels his hand twitch with the fingers she weaved lightly through his.

She looks down at him from her uncomfortable chair, finding his eyes staring back at her, wide open and alert. Emotions overcome her quickly, feeling the wet liquid pool in the corner of her eyes at the sight of him looking back at her. She’s dreaming; she _has_ to be dreaming she tries reasoning with herself; but there he is, hazel eyes looking back at her and a soft smile gracing his features.

“Liam?”

He just smiles that goofy smile of his that she didn’t know she could miss so much and mutters ever so simply, “Hey, babe.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“You look like shit,” he says eyeing her appearance up and down. She’s sure there’s bags under her eyes for days and her face is barren of any ounce of makeup, but it’s _just_ like Liam to try to lighten the mood after he barely scraped past death’s door.

“Well, you look pretty shitty yourself,” she says, squeezing his hand tight in hers, laughing lightly along with him. She brings up her free hand to wipe the stray tear falling out of the corner of her left eye. “And you could use a shower.”

“How long have I been out?”

She looks down at their joined hands, this overjoyed happiness feeling building inside of her, but this dark sadness still very much looming over her like a dark grey cloud. She feels him glaring at her as she sits silently, waiting for her response.

“Almost two weeks.”

She looks up at him a moment later and she knows he can see the utmost of hurt glooming in her eyes, the stress and anxiety right there on the surface; he could always read her like a book. He pulls hand up to her, cupping her cheek with it when the tears start to fall from the corners of her eyes, everything coming to the forefront as she looks at him in front of her - alive, _awake,_ when all she could ponder for the past two weeks was if he was going to ever wake up.

“My head hurts.”

“Well, yeah.” She wipes at her cheeks and leans back from his touch, ashamed at the weakness she’s showing him, even though it was _Liam,_ the one who constantly reminded her that showing your emotions didn’t make you _weak_ , it made you _human._ She’s thankful for the subject change though, thankful he can always seem to figure out exactly what she needs and when she needs it without her saying a single word. “You had a pretty nasty blow to your head there.”

His brow furrows, “What happened?”

“We found you in the pool.”

The flashbacks start immediately, haunting her, parading around in her head; the moment she walked up to her home and found him laying on a stretcher. She didn’t even _see_ him in the pool and she’s kind of grateful she didn’t, but that doesn’t mean her minds gone there imagining it tens of thousands of times. Liam, face down in a pool full of water, unable to breathe, losing oxygen every second he remained unfound; slipping further and further away from her.

“Liam, I thought you were going to die.”

“Hey, hey,” he pulls their hands up to his lips, pressing a kiss against the back of hers. He lets their hands fall against his chest, directly above his heart, letting her hear the steady and strong rhythm beating against their laced fingers. “I’m right here.”

_//_

It’s three days after he wakes up that he’s cleared by Doctor Jones for discharge.

All his scans were normal, his vitals were good, he had no concussion, and the doctor wasn’t concerned with any memory loss or brain damage - Liam was good to go home.

She runs to his apartment to get him a fresh change of clothes while they wait for the paperwork to be finalized, they’re told it could be a few hours before everything is settled and he’s free to walk out of the building so she figures she has plenty of time to head to his place; a clean pair of clothes would probably do him good.

And do _her_ good; he smelt _terrible._

She comes back with a bag full of clothes and a bottle of his cologne, walking into his room feeling lighter than she has in two weeks. It’s nice to walk into his room to see him sitting up, scrolling through his phone and talking to his mom, who must have received her text of the news of his impending release and decided to swing by to join the two of them.

She just wanted things to go back to normal, to go back to a life where this didn’t happen and she didn’t have to think about it day in and day out; to just go home and curl up with him and relish in the fact that he’s still very much alive. He looks up at her, lost in her thoughts and smiles in her direction; wide and bright and full of hope.

“Hey,” he says simply.

“Hey,” she replies, unable to stop the way her lips curve up. “You ready to get out of here?”


	3. breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I very much poured my own experiences with anxiety into this story, so I hope it comes across authentic because I very much lived through it. But anyways, I can't believe this story grew to how long it's become but it somehow did and well...enjoy the last installment of this fic. 
> 
> I'm [ladysantebellum](http://www.ladysantebellum.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you ever want to catch me over there.

_She feels like she’s floating, a weird in and out of consciousness feeling she couldn’t quite comprehend, couldn’t quite place._

_But then she sees him, floating face down in the pool in his red and blue plaid shirt he’d picked out with her just a few hours ago, back when she didn’t think anything could go wrong; that her day would go as it normally did and she’d fall asleep curled against his warmth just like they always did._

_She calls out for him, but there’s no response, he just keeps floating on endlessly in a pool of water that has no end. It goes on and on forever, limitless, and each step closer she takes towards him he falls a little further away; a little further out of reach._

_She tries to move faster, to catch up with the current taking him further and further away from her, but the waves don’t stop, breaking over her body as she walks towards him falling further out of her eyesight until she can’t see him anymore._

It’s pitch black in his room when she jerks awake, breathing heavily, her body shaking at the images she’d just witnessed flashing in her head, _still_ flashing in her head. Liam, in an endless body of water, floating on his stomach, forever out of reach no matter how hard or fast she tried to get to him.

She’s not sure _why_ , exactly, that she expected things to just….return to precisely how everything was before this whole mess, for things to just go back to exactly how things were as if none of this had ever even happened. Because he was okay and now they could both just forget all about it and be totally fine and okay.

She doesn’t know why she was so naive in thinking everything would just…fall back into place, because he’d almost _died_ and that wasn’t something that just evaporated into thin air. It stayed with you and it haunted your every waking _and_ non-waking moment. It dug deep into your core, guttural, mean and cruel and forced you to look at everything around you differently, to move about everything you used to do in an entirely new way.

She just lays awake in the darkness of night, unable to get her mind of the dream, _nightmare,_ she’d just had, unable to process what it all meant. She reaches out to his side of the bed, feeling around for his hand and linking their fingers together when she finds it. He must sense her presence, or maybe he stirs awake at the touch, but he pulls her in close to his chest and she finds comfort in the way his heart beats steadily under her.

//

It’s three days later and she’s managed to go every night since without any nightmares; sleeping soundly and peaceful without any negative thoughts plaguing her mind. She figures it’s finally over - that constant fear. That it was just a result of Liam being _in_ the hospital and now that he was released and seemingly free of any problems, everything would be okay again.

Laura had just left them, heading to the airport to catch her flight back to New York City. She said she’d be on the first flight back out to the south if either one of them needed her but, Liam was okay and she didn’t see any reason to loom in their presence and disrupt the life they were trying to build together.

Liam’s in the kitchen cooking them breakfast, as sweet and caring as he always was; he’s making waffles from scratch in his cast iron waffle iron with fresh cut strawberries from the farmer’s market down the street that were probably picked just hours ago.

She’s just scrolling through her phone mindlessly, checking everything and anything but nothing of any importance at all when she sees him grab at his head with both of his hands, the spatula in his right hand dropping straight to the kitchen floor.

And she _panics_.

“Liam?” She rushes to his side, holding the hands that are holding his head, forcing him to look at her when she asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright.” He shakes his head like he’s brushing the whole thing off, like it wasn’t a big deal at all, like he didn’t just make her heart drop out of her chest. “It’s just a little headache. It just came on quick that’s all. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Liam.”

“I’m okay!” He laughs at her worry, which she doesn’t understand because can’t he see that she’s spiraling? But she gets it - it’s irrational. This fear that’s overcome her since he’d almost died. He just leans in close to her, kissing her forehead gently before he resumes his work on their breakfast. “The doctor said these were normal, remember?”

But then she finds herself spiraling again _,_ all these questions racing in her mind, not about to focus on anyone or anything, no end in the cycle of questions she’s let herself enter: w _hat if he wasn’t okay, what if he didn’t make it, what if he wasn’t here with me right now?_

Everything around her suddenly feels so different; like she’s there but she’s _not._ Everything feels so out of reach. There’s this heat that inches it’s way through her veins and she can feel her _heart_ , the pulse beating in her eardrums.

“Hey,” his shoulder grabs at hers, pulling her out of her trance, bringing her back to the present; if only just slightly because she’s still not fully there with him. “You okay?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re somewhere else right now.”

She just smiles in response; deflecting the question, she knows, but she doesn’t have the energy to talk to him about it. And it’s stupid, she knows that, too, because it’s Liam and he wouldn’t make her feel any less about herself for what she’s feeling but she doesn’t even know _how_ to explain it.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“Fal,” he sighs. “You know I’m here right? You can talk to me.”

“I know,” she smiles, trying to deflect, trying to hide from him; he’d just escaped _death_ , it wasn’t his responsibly to deal with her problems now. And while she thinks she did her best to make her eyes look wide and present, she’s almost positive he catches how far away she really is from him. “But, I’m okay. Really.”

He lets it go, for whatever reason, he leaves it alone even though she can see the worry deep within his retinas; and when he pulls her flat against him, pressing his lips against hers and she allows herself to fall against his chest, she lets herself just _feel_ for a moment; feel his warmth and comfort and forget about everything else, even if it’s only for a moment.

//

She stirs awake in the early morning after another restless nights’ sleep; tossing and turning and the flashing images of last nights dreams come back to the forefront. She can’t figure out why she can’t shake this constant fear, this constant apprehension that she’s losing him when _he’s right here._

She reaches out to his side of the bed looking for his hand, his touch always a driving force in calming down these worries, if only slightly. Having him close _helped_ , but when she doesn’t find it lingering against the sheets, she immediately starts flustering.

Her eyes fly open and she finds his side of the bed completely barren, the cogs in her brain turning and turning and immediately jumping to the worst of all conclusions, _what if, what if, what if;_ a viscous cycle that won’t end.

“Liam?”

She’s met with a harrowing silence, a distressing stillness and she swears if a pin drop fell on the floor, she’d hear it bounce back up against his hardwood floors. He was okay, she tells herself; he _had_ to be. He was probably in the shower and he probably didn’t hear her.

She tries again, “Liam?!”

But she’s met with absolutely n _othing._

She rushes out of bed, flinging her legs off the side, searching the apartment that’s slowly becoming _theirs_ and frantically runs from room to room trying to locate him. She checks the bathroom - he’s not in the shower. He’s not in the living room watching television and he’s not in the kitchen making his morning coffee.

And his, _their,_ apartment isn’t even that big so there’s no where else for her to check and everything feels like it’s closing in around her because he’s not here and she doesn’t know what to do.

But then the front door swings open, revealing the boy she’s been searching for holding two iced coffee’s and a brown paper bag from the bagel shop right down the street from his, _their_ , building.

“Liam?”

And the way his face drops she just knows he can see the absolute worry in her eyes, the way she’s standing their fidgeting and shaking and eyes clearly full of tears threatening to fall any second. What she hates most is how she could see the defeat in his eyes when he tugged her close to him, the absolutely agony and pain in his eyes that he doesn’t know how to just make it all better.

Make _her_ better.

He doesn’t even say a word, just walks right up to her and pulls her straight into his arms, tight and secure inside his grasp. His hand starts rubbing patterns against her back, inevitably trying to calm her unsteady breathing.

“It’s okay, alright? I’m right here.” His voice is so calm, so soothing that it instantly takes some of her fear away. “Deep breaths. In and out, alright?”

She heads his advice, breathing along with the pattern he takes on for her benefit; in and out, in and out. She feels her pulse slow with each rep of breath she intakes, finally feeling her heart rate return to normal.

“I left a note on my pillow so you wouldn’t worry, babe.” He pulls back, holding her face in his hands. “Did you not see?”

She shakes her head, letting herself find his eyes and take comfort in the warmth they give her. His thumb runs in circles against her cheeks, calming and comforting in the way he won’t let her go, won’t let her stagger far away from his grasp.

“I’m sorry, Fal.”

She just moves her head left to right; she tires to tell him it’s okay, but she can’t seem to find her voice, still shaken from everything that just transpired. She pushes herself closer to him again, letting her forehead nestle in against his neck, content to just stay here in his arms for the rest of the day.

//

She feels him push against her shoulders lightly early one morning, trying to stir her out of sleep quietly, gently.. She can hear him softly say her name, over and over and over again, until her eyes finally open against their will.

“Good morning, sleepy.”

“Sleepy?” Her eyes wander to the alarm clock near his side of the bed. “It’s 6am.”

“Which means we’ve gotta get going if we want to get to Charleston by 10.”

“Charleston?” She rubs at her eyes, trying to wipe the lingering sleep away, pulling her body up and leaning against the headboard, pulling the sheets up around her neck. “Huh?”

“I might have a little surprise up my sleeve.”

“Liam,” she groans in response. “You know I hate surprises.”

“Which is why I told you where we’re going,” he reasons in response. “You’re lucky I gave you that much information. C’mon, our bags are in the car already.”

There’s this glint of happiness in his eyes when he says it, waiting for her to take the bait and jump out of bed. And how could she say no to him when he’s gone and done all this for her? Just to surprise her? Especially when he looks this _happy._ So, when he holds out his hand for her to grab, she slips her fingers into his and lets him pull her away.

She holds his hand in the center console on the car ride heading East, listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits album; him, singing along like a fool and not being able to sing in key to save his life but he’s grinning like a crazy person, belting out all of Stevie’s high notes and she can't help but smile as she watches him.

She even catches herself singing along with the music, too.

They arrive in the coastal town around noon, pulling up to the HarbourView Inn; he of course found this small and quaint hotel for them to stay in, in the French Quarter ( _“The closest hotel in proximity of the Atlantic,” he’d said)._ There’s a view of the ocean from their window of their suite, the blue water seemingly calm and peaceful in the distance.

They’d only gone to the hotel to check-in, Liam seemingly having another surprise up his sleeve as he pulled her down the old and historic roads. She finds them walking hand and hand towards the marina when he points out the boat they’d be spending the afternoon on. A tour of the harbor, providing them with all the dates and facts of all the buildings they passed by. She even saw a dolphin jump from beneath the surface, hitting his shoulder in excitement and pointing it out to him as it happened.

And later, when they make their way back to land, he takes her to dinner at this charming little local joint, right on the water. The sit on the restaurants deck outdoors, the sea breeze calm and gentle against them as they eat fresh seafood in the warm sunlight, oblivious to everything and everyone around them.

After dinner, they find themselves sitting on the sandy beach watching the sky turns all sorts of oranges, pinks and purples; one of the prettiest sunsets she swears she’s ever had the privilege of witnessing with her own eyes.

Her back is pressed against his chest and his arms weave around her front, his hands clasped together against her stomach. She holds her hands over his and leans her head back against his shoulder, soaking it all in and letting herself just _feel_ in this moment with him.

“Liam?”

He mumbles out a, “Hmm?”

“I love you.”

She feels his breath tickle against her ear when he leans in closer to her before she hears him whisper, “I love you, too.”

His lips linger against the side of her head when she realizes her minds been completely free of all her worries all day. There wasn’t that heaviness in her chest, there wasn’t those moments she’d stop mid conversation and let her thoughts wander out of control until she’s breathing heavily.

She hadn’t thought about her nightmares once all day.

She’s sitting on the white sandy beach, looking out at the Atlantic ocean, wrapped up in the arms of this boy she absolutely adores and she feels content.

She feels…happy.

_Free_ **.**

//

_“Ms. Carrington?”_

_She steps up from the uncomfortable waiting room chair when the doctor calls out her name. She’s anxious, uncomfortable, and terribly afraid as the doctor who’d been assigned his case makes their way to her. She tries incredibly hard to read the woman’s face, but she has no luck; it’s stoic and completely void of any emotion._

_She’s not sure if that’s a good thing._

_Her feet stop before the woman in dark blue scrubs asking, “How is he?”_

_“Ms. Carrington,” the woman starts gently, and it’s then that she knows._

_She can hear it in her tone, the ache and vulnerability that she’s about to deliver her bad news, that she once again had to tell family members that she wasn’t able to save her patient. She feels the tears already pricking at her eyes, unable to fully take the weight of what she’s being told, unable to make sense of it._

_She shakes her head from left to right muttering, “No.”_

_Doctor Jones takes a deep breath before continuing. “Your fiancés’ injuries were too severe for us to fix.”_

_“No, you’re lying,” she says in desperate need to make her own self believe it. “You’re lying.”_

_“I’m sorry, Ms. Carrington, but Liam didn’t make it.”_

_She swears she feels all the air escape from her lungs; she can’t breathe as she tries to digest the news. She falls to her knees on the hard tiled floor, anguished and full of so much pain as she just curls into herself._

_He was gone. Liam was gone._

_But she swears his voice in the distance, muttering, “Hey, hey, hey.” It’s soft, but it feels so close, it feels so real. “Fallon, wake up.”_

Her eyes fly open, Liam hovering over her and trying to pull her back to consciousness. He was _here,_ he was alive and he was right in front of her. She tries to shake the horror she’d just endured, tries to rid the thought from her mind.

It was just a dream.

“Liam?”

“Hey, hey,” he pulls her in close to his chest, holding her tight against the warmth of his bare chest. His hand rubs patterns along the small of her back, the softest of touches, trying to calm her heavy breathing down, trying to calm her speeding heart rate. “I’m right here.”

She lets her forehead rest in the crevice of his neck. the need to be as close to him as possible increasing with each minute. She breathes in for four counts and out for six; it’s what she’d be taught so many years ago when she was forced into therapy when her mother left, when she’d first got a touch of what anxiety could do to a person.

She hates that this time around it’s even worse.

“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

//

She wakes up in the morning and his arms are still strong and secure around her frame; she turns into him further, resting her head against his chest and nestling into the warmth of his body.

“G’morning,” he mutters, kissing the top of her head and she already knows by his tone that theres more coming, like he’s been contemplating this conversation all morning while she slept, planning everything he was going to say out loud. “Look, Fal…”

“I’m okay.”

“No, babe,” he signs. But it’s gentle, it’s _always_ gentle. “You’re not.”

“I’m fine, Liam.” Her voice gets a little strong, a little loud; maybe even a little angry, but not at him, at everything that’s happening to her and how she can’t seem to get it under control. “Really, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“But I do, Fallon.” She hates the heartache she hears in his voice, because she knows it’s all because of _her._ He was alive and well and they should be _living_ and celebrating their engagement and planning their _wedding_. “I _am.”_

She doesn't even know what to say, so she stays silent in his embrace. He starts rubbing small circles on her lower back, soothing and calming and so full of love. She feels safe here, with him; in his arms. Nothing could hurt her here, he wouldn’t allow it and she knows that and that makes her heart swell in ways she never thought possible.

“I think you should try talking to someone.”

“What? No.”

“Fal, you can’t keep living like this. It’s crippling,” he says. “You’re barely sleeping, you’re barely eating. I can see the absolute panic in your eyes when you wake up in the morning.”

What she hates most is that he’s _right_. She can’t sleep without waking up screaming from a nightmare about him dying, her appetite’s been off since everything happened and she feels so anxious at all hours of the day. She _knows_ this, she does, but she still hates the idea of sitting down and talking with a professional, bringing fourth all those fears she has and trying to work through them.

“I just want you to be okay.”

“I know you do,” she says, but it’s tired and strained. Sad, even. She feels the tears pricking at her eyes but she doesn’t dare let them fall, even though she knows he can probably hear it in her tone that she’s close to crying regardless.

“It’s okay you know,” he speaks again. “We both just survived a trauma and it’s okay that you’re not okay.”

She closes her eyes at his words, unable to stop those few pesky tears from escaping the corners of her eyes. He squeezes at her side, keeping her close, letting her know he’s there for her - always. She rationalizes what he’s said, takes in everything he’s told her and takes a deep breath before she speaks again.

“Okay,” she says softly, audible; to his ears only. “I’ll try it.”

//

She steps out of the therapists room, feeling more free and weightless than she’d felt in weeks. She spots Liam off in the corner, still sitting in the same exact spot she’d left him in before. Of course he didn’t leave, he said he’d be right here waiting for her after her session, said he wasn’t going anywhere; not now, not ever.

She was starting to let herself believe him.

He lifts himself out of his chair quickly once he spots her exiting the room, effortlessly making is way towards her; he grabs both her hands with his in the most caring and loving of touches it makes her heart ache, staring her directly in the eyes so she knows he’s listening to every word she’s about to say.

“Hey,” he smiles at her. “How’d it go? How are you feeling?”

“It went okay,” she says simply, smiling up at him warmly. He moves his thumb up to caress the side of her face. “I think in time I’ll be okay.”

He presses his lips against her forehead, tender and pure, full of all the love he feels for her, and when she laces her fingers with his as they walk out of the building, she finds herself letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.


End file.
